Page 40 of Lost and Found Cowboy

Mack shoved him away, but he caught himself as he stumbled back. Then he held up his hands and let out a disdainful laugh. “Fine. I’m going. No need to get the cops involved. But Lorna, don’t forget how easy it was for me to take my son away from you today.”

Lorna claspedher hands in her lap as Mack pulled the truck up in front of the house at the ranch a few hours later. Duke had already invited them for supper, and it hadn’t taken much convincing when Mack suggested they spend the night as well.

He’d been great through the whole ordeal that afternoon, dealing with Lyle then driving them to the pediatrician’s office, while Lorna sat in the back with Max, holding a napkin wrapped around the ice from her cup against his lip.

The pediatrician confirmed that Max had bit his tongue and assured Lorna he didn’t need stitches in his lip. He’d prescribedChildren’s Tylenol, rest, soft foods, and as many popsicles as Max wanted.

Lorna glanced into the back seat where both kids were sound asleep. Max had stopped taking afternoon naps years ago, but the combination of medicine, trauma, and the lull of Mack’s truck engine must have done him in.

She slumped against the seat, fatigue stealing over her, and she felt wearier than she had in a long time. “Can we just sit here for a minute?”

“Sure. I’ll even leave the engine running so the kids don’t wake up.” Mack offered her an encouraging smile as he reached over and took her hand. “He’s okay, Lorn.”

She nodded, tears threatening. She squeezed his hand as she swallowed them back. “I know. And he’s bonked his face and hit his head before, but this is different. It’s not even so much that Max got hurt while he was with Lyle, it’s more about how easily that asshole walked up to the school and just took my son.”

“I still can’t believe they let that happen. Don’t they have some kind of rules about who can pick kids up?”

“They do, but from what Max said, he was already in front of the school when Lyle came up to him and said I’d asked him to pick him up. There are teachers and admins there who have either known Lyle forever or just know he’s Max’s dad from when he was in preschool there last year.” She looked out across the farmyard as she shook her head. “And honestly, because Lyle was gone, I’m not sure if I ever took his name off the list of approved people to pick Max up from school. How could I have been so stupid?”

“Hey. You’re not stupid for thinking you can trust the father of your children not to hurt them.”

“I am if their father is Lyle Williams.” She turned back to Mack but couldn’t meet his eye. She stared into her lap,summoning the courage to tell him the deepest secret and shame of her life.

Glancing in the back seat once more to make sure that Max was still asleep, she took a deep breath then in a soft voice admitted, “He used to hurt me.” She shifted her gaze back to Mack, but he didn’t look horrified or judgmental. Or even surprised. He just looked like Mack—his expression open and ready to listen. “That’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, to anyone. I’m ashamed to admit it, but Lyle used to hit me.”

His expression changed now as his brow furrowed. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. He’s the only one who’s at fault here.”

“That’s kind of you to say. But I’m not sure that’s true. I’m still not sure how it happened. He’d seemed like such a great guy. We hadn’t been dating that long, and we were always careful, but I got pregnant anyway. He seemed so excited and asked me to marry him the night I told him. I thought he really loved me. Although, as I look back now, there were probably signs that I’d missed. A hard pinch to the back of my arm when I’d said something in front of someone that embarrassed him, a playful slap on the thigh that wasn’t always so playful.” She shook her head. “I had no idea when I met him that he had such a capacity for anger. And not just anger, but meanness. I think someone probably hurt him when he was young.”

She held up her free hand to stop him when Mack started to say something.

“I’m not excusing his behavior. But maybe that’s why I did back then. I felt sorry for him. And it started slowly. The first time was a slap. And then he felt so bad and apologized so profusely. He brought me flowers and gifts and seemed like that sweet guy who I’d originally fallen for. I believed him when he said it would never happen again. And it didn’t, not for a long time. And then again, not for a long time again after the next slap. We were broke and had a baby, and I was just trying tosurvive life, so maybe I didn’t even realize what was going on until it was too late.”

Mack was still holding her hand. His voice was soft as he said, “You can’t blame yourself.”

“It’s hard not to. Especially now when I look back and see how he so methodically manipulated me. He’d always been possessive. But he made it seem like he wanted to be with me instead of that he was discouraging me from spending time with my mom or my sister or the few friends I’d had left from high school. I was kind of an introvert anyway, and in the beginning, he made me feel special the way he love-bombed me and said he wanted me all to himself and how I was the only person he needed. It wasn’t until later that I realized he’d been systematically isolating me from my family and friends for years.”

“That’s what they do,” Mack said. “My mom was with men like that. And they always made her feel like it was her fault for making them smack her. But it wasn’t her fault. And it wasn’t your fault either.”

She shrugged, but kept a tight hold of his hand, as if it were the only thing holding her together.

“I hear women talk about it sometimes, and they always say how they would leave immediately if a maneverlaid his hands on them. But it’s not that easy. Not when you have a baby, and no money, no job, no friends, and a strained relationship with your family. And he was so kind and loving to me for months after it happened that it almost seemed worth the pain to have that sweet guy back. But, as you can imagine, things got worse, and the slaps turned into punches and the beatings got worse. I knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t know how to get help.”

“And your mom never knew?” Mack asked.

“Maybe. I think she suspected something wasn’t right. But, like I said, I didn’t see her very often, and I spent so much timeat home that it was easy to hide a black eye or a bruised cheek, or a sprained wrist. The only one who ever saw the evidence was Max, and I just prayed he was too young to understand what was going on.”

“Did he hurt Max?”

“No. Not physically. He said mean things, but he never hit him. But I saw it coming. His rage was escalating. He wasn’t doing well at the insurance agency, and he kept borrowing money, not just from the bank here, but from a credit union in Denver, and from people in town who used to be his friends. I don’t know how much he owed, but I found some of the paperwork from the bank, and it was a lot.”

She glanced in the back seat again to make sure Max was still sleeping and waited to speak until she saw the rhythmic rise and fall of his small chest. “And then one night, he came home, drunk and angry at the world, and he took all that mad out on me. He beat the hell out of me. He left me on the floor in the corner of our bedroom, and when he went to the kitchen for another beer, I got Max and locked us in the bathroom all night. In the morning, I heard his car drive away and even though I had one eye so swollen shut I could barely see, I got myself to the emergency room. He’d broken my arm, and I needed stitches for a cut on my forehead. They asked if someone had hurt me, if I felt safe at home—what a joke—and if I wanted them to call the police. But I knew Lyle was going to be pissed off enough that I’d even gone to the hospital, so I lied and said that I’d fallen down the stairs.”

Mack winced and squeezed her hand even harder. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

“Me, too. And I’m sorry I didn’t ask for help sooner. I’d like to think I would have, especially after that last time, but then something changed. Lyle started spending more time at the office, and then he had all these meetings he had to attend atnight after work, and then a couple of out-of-town trips for some insurance conferences. I think I knew what was happening,but I didn’t care. He was in a better mood, and I was just happy he was gone all the time and was leaving me alone. Everyone in town felt so sorry for me when he left town and divorced me for Misty, but they should’ve been feeling sorry for her.”

“Do you think he tried something with Misty, and she kicked him out?”

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